[danny_codes]

Presumably China given OPs comments.

It’s going to be a multi-polar world. The US will continue to be among the top powers for decades to come. We’re simply exiting an unusual period where China isn’t leading/among the leading pack of countries.

The rate of US relative decline will be set by our policy decisions and cohesion. As we are apparently electing malicious narcissists with dementia to our highest office, a more precipitous decline seems reasonable

[michaelteter]

I think what you will see is what happens in the body when it becomes starved - it will start eating itself.

We have already begun to see this. The middle class is no longer expanding, nor is the poor (by meaningful terms). Worse, the poorest class - largely made up from immigrants - legal or otherwise - are being driven away.

Life in the US has been relatively comfortable for a few generations now. So current healthy (age-speaking, not fitness) generations have no idea how to revolt. Ironically, we may see change come from the southerners with guns who eventually decided they had been deceived by the people they voted for. After all, both sides cowered on Jan 6. Just imagine if "representing your constituents" was a do or die scenario. The US is mostly far from that scenario if a supreme leader is not directing the masses.

Unfortunately, as with many other fallen empires, I think it will take a LONG time for things to recover. The idealistic principles which the US claimed to be founded upon are largely not present now - the freedom from oppression, the freedom of/from religion, and the concept of fair representation.

[notlenin]

> we may see change come from the southerners with guns who eventually decided they had been deceived by the people they voted for.

er... last time southerners with guns revolted, it didn't exactly end well... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War

[notlenin]

> As we are apparently electing malicious narcissists with dementia to our highest office, a more precipitous decline seems reasonable

To be fair, the current political dysfunction can probably largely be reduced by switching the electoral system from 'first past the post' + electoral college to something like ranked choice or proportional representation.

> In political science, Duverger's law holds that in political systems with single-member districts and the first-past-the-post voting system, as in, for example, the United States and United Kingdom, only two powerful political parties tend to control power.

> By contrast, in countries with proportional representation or two-round elections, such as France, Sweden, New Zealand or Spain, there is no two-party duopoly on power. There are usually more than two significant political parties.

and that way the presidential election does reflect "either the will of the Democratic Party elite or the will of the Republican Party elite" (ie, the extremes of the two main parties), but something closer to the will of the people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law